What amount should taxes/fees be charged on?

[KarenRB]

I booked a cruise online and was charged taxes, port expenses and fees on the listed "sale" price.  (Regular studio price $2275. Sale Guest Fare $1479. Taxes & fees $243.)  Decided to turn it into a B2B but the same cabin number wasn't showing as being available online for the following week.  Called and found out the cabin actually was available so I had the rep book it for me.  The cost for both weeks was listed as $1479.

 

Noticed on the invoice she booked for me, the totals weren't the same.  She had the Guest Fare listed as $2275, the taxes as $296 and then a "Savings" of $796.  Booking it this way caused the second week to be $50 more even though the base prices were the same.

 

I went through my reservations for the other four cruises (squee!) I have booked over the next two years and saw two had taxes charged on the before savings amount and two just listed the Guest Fare as the sale price and taxed that amount.

 

Anyone know what amount is supposed to be taxed?

[zqvol]

It’s not calculated like that. It includes port fees, taxes and other expenses and they can vary all,the time. There is no correlation between the fees on two different cruises, especially if the ports are not identical. 

[IAcruising]

25 minutes ago, KarenRB said:

Anyone know what amount is supposed to be taxed?

 

Without booking the exact rooms, on the exact same cruises, at the exact same times -- no, no one knows the amount you are supposed to be taxed.

 

[itsnotjustme]

The "taxes, fess, and port expenses" are the same regardless of the fare or even cabin class for each unique cruise.  Different cruise, different taxes, fess, and port expenses.  They are visible in tiny print when looking at the cruise listing.  

Edited April 30 by itsnotjustme

[KarenRB]

Just to be clear:  same ship, same itinerary, same cabin, different departure date.  I'm going to do a mock booking for the second week online and see if I get the same price as I got with the rep.

[njhorseman]

39 minutes ago, KarenRB said:

Just to be clear:  same ship, same itinerary, same cabin, different departure date.  I'm going to do a mock booking for the second week online and see if I get the same price as I got with the rep.

In your original post you ask  the question "Does anyone know what amount is supposed to be taxed?" .

The answer is that the taxes and fees are not based on any fare "amount". They're not like sales taxes which are a percentage of the price of the goods or services being purchased. (The exception is on Hawaiian cruises where a General Excise Tax, similar to a sales tax is imposed by the state.)

There are numerous components to the taxes and fees, all of which can vary by port, ship and the cruise line's contracts with the various ports including docking fees, harbor pilot fees, tug boat fees, seasonal taxes, port taxes imposed on a per passenger basis and others that no one but the cruise line can identify. As I said, none of these are based on your fare so on any particular sailing you could be paying a base fare of $1,000 per person for an inside cabin or $5,000 per person for a suite and the taxes and fees will be the same for each.

 The same itinerary sailing on different weeks can have different taxes and fees because ports sometimes have seasonal variations in what they charge.

Edited April 30 by njhorseman

[chengkp75]

What the OP does not realize is that the "taxes" are not taxes placed on his/her purchase, but taxes paid by the ship to the port.  Now, many of these taxes are fixed for the ship, so that fixed tax amount is divided up by the number of passengers onboard to get a "per passenger" amount of taxes and fees.  Now, the identical cruise the next week, may have significantly more or less passengers historically booked than the first week, and this will affect the number of passengers that the fixed tax or fee is divided into.  In many cases, when actual occupancy on the ship is vastly different (either up or down) from historical data, the "taxes and fees" get adjusted once the cruise starts.

[RocketMan275]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

What the OP does not realize is that the "taxes" are not taxes placed on his/her purchase, but taxes paid by the ship to the port.  Now, many of these taxes are fixed for the ship, so that fixed tax amount is divided up by the number of passengers onboard to get a "per passenger" amount of taxes and fees.  Now, the identical cruise the next week, may have significantly more or less passengers historically booked than the first week, and this will affect the number of passengers that the fixed tax or fee is divided into.  In many cases, when actual occupancy on the ship is vastly different (either up or down) from historical data, the "taxes and fees" get adjusted once the cruise starts.

Now how do they adjust the taxes per passenger from cruise to cruise when the passengers have paid for their cruise weeks/months in advance of the cruise?

[chengkp75]

4 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

Now how do they adjust the taxes per passenger from cruise to cruise when the passengers have paid for their cruise weeks/months in advance of the cruise?

If the taxes per passenger were to increase (too few passengers), the line generally eats the increase.  If they go down (more passengers), there is an adjustment to the onboard account rebating the difference.  

[RocketMan275]

4 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

If the taxes per passenger were to increase (too few passengers), the line generally eats the increase.  If they go down (more passengers), there is an adjustment to the onboard account rebating the difference.  

 

 

The cruise line has to eat the difference if there is an increase per passengers.  How often has a cruise line increasing the taxes paid on a passenger after the cruise has departed?  Must be very, very rare or we would have certainly heard about it on Cruise Critic.

Nor, have I ever heard about a downward adjustment after sailing.

 

 

[chengkp75]

Okay, here's an example.  Let's say there is a cruise that has total taxes and fees of $50,000.  Historically, the cruise line knows that 2000 passengers have booked this cruise, so they set the taxes and fees at $25/passenger.  Now, if only 1800 passengers actually take the cruise, the cruise line does not ask for more money from each passenger ($2.78), they just pay the difference to the ports/countries.  If, however, 2200 passengers take the cruise, the cruise line will often rebate the $2.27/passenger to their onboard account.  Happens all the time, and is particularly noticeable on Panama Canal cruises where the taxes and fees are especially high, so the actual passenger count makes a big difference.  They are actually required to rebate the reduction in taxes and fees, since this is a "pass through" charge (i.e. it goes from the passenger to the third party that charges the taxes/fees).

Edited April 30 by chengkp75

[njhorseman]

14 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

 

 

The cruise line has to eat the difference if there is an increase per passengers.  How often has a cruise line increasing the taxes paid on a passenger after the cruise has departed?  Must be very, very rare or we would have certainly heard about it on Cruise Critic.

Nor, have I ever heard about a downward adjustment after sailing.

 

 

We've received a small downward adjustment as a matter of customer courtesy in the form of an onboard credit once or twice in years past. I can't say if it's been done recently. We've never been charged for a tax/fee increase while on board, although it would  be allowed under the terms of the Guest Ticket Contract: 

3. Terms of Fare

(a) Items Included in Fare

"...If governmental or quasi-governmental action results in any element of such taxes and fees exceeding the estimates used by Carrier for purposes of computing the quoted amount, Carrier reserves the right to pass through the extra amount."

[chengkp75]

2 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

exceeding the estimates used by Carrier for purposes of computing the quoted amount,

Yes, the rebates of taxes and fees is never very large.  For Rocketman, note the use of "estimates" and "quoted amount".

[RocketMan275]

4 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

We've received a small downward adjustment as a matter of customer courtesy in the form of an onboard credit once or twice in years past. I can't say if it's been done recently. We've never been charged for a tax/fee increase while on board, although it would  be allowed under the terms of the Guest Ticket Contract: 

3. Terms of Fare

(a) Items Included in Fare

"...If governmental or quasi-governmental action results in any element of such taxes and fees exceeding the estimates used by Carrier for purposes of computing the quoted amount, Carrier reserves the right to pass through the extra amount."

 

1 minute ago, chengkp75 said:

Yes, the rebates of taxes and fees is never very large.  For Rocketman, note the use of "estimates" and "quoted amount".

That doesn't change my assertion that upward adjustments must be very, very rare.  I would imagine CC would be in a major meltdown if such ever happened.

[chengkp75]

7 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

 

That doesn't change my assertion that upward adjustments must be very, very rare.  I would imagine CC would be in a major meltdown if such ever happened.

And, I said the line "generally" eats the increase, perhaps I should have said "always".  I have never heard of an increase (except for Panama Canal cruises), but can't say it has never happened.

 

And, the point I was trying to make, in response to the OP's question, was that the estimated per passenger taxes and fees could be higher on the second week of the B2B because it is not a school vacation week, while the first week was (higher demand on first week).  Same total taxes and fees, but with less passengers, the per passenger taxes and fees are higher, for the same cruise.

Edited April 30 by chengkp75

[njhorseman]

7 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

 

That doesn't change my assertion that upward adjustments must be very, very rare.  I would imagine CC would be in a major meltdown if such ever happened.

I was agreeing with your assertion. I said that while we have received small credits for decreases we've never been charged for an increase in taxes/fees despite it being contractually permissible to be charged.

Edited April 30 by njhorseman

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, njhorseman said:

I was agreeing with your assertion. I said that while we have received small credits for decreases we've never been charged for an increase in taxes/fees despite it being contractually permissible to be charged.

Same here, a few small OBCs added, never an extra charge. I remember after the first one calling our TA after the cruise and asking about it out of curiosity. I basically got the same explanation that was given earlier in the thread.

[electro]

2 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

If the taxes per passenger were to increase (too few passengers), the line generally eats the increase.  If they go down (more passengers), there is an adjustment to the onboard account rebating the difference.  

I doubt that NCL is rebating any difference. They are no longer retuning any port taxes when a port is missed.

[Liljo22]

26 minutes ago, electro said:

I doubt that NCL is rebating any difference. They are no longer retuning any port taxes when a port is missed.

They still rebate differences and missed ports on a case by case basis.  I have received a small OBC this year for the per passenger amount coming in lower than expected.  If they miss a port and the per passenger amount is still higher than they charged passengers, or course they are not going to return port fees for that port.  

[KarenRB]

Thanks, all.  I learned a lot.

[graphicguy]

Moreover....you can think of the fares like hotel rates at resorts.  In addition to everyone's good advice above, hotel rates change from day to day, depending on occupancy as well as time of year.

 

Two identical cruises in identical cabins sailing a week apart will more likely than not, have different fares.